


Beat

by Winterstar



Series: The Kent Rogers Cycle [8]
Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-31 01:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12121305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: Steve mourns Clark's death, but can he accept it? Should he?





	Beat

He kneels at the edge of the plot; the dried grass had been finely mowed – taken care of by those who loved the man beneath the earth. He reaches out and touches the hay green blades as if to touch and to hold onto the Earth might somehow bring him closer to the shadows of death around him.

Steve has been followed by death all these years. Perhaps when he crashed the Valkyrie into the tundra and he somehow escaped death, he now has a guardian following him. Not a Guardian Angel, but a Guardian of Death. A force that spreads out, contaminates, and kills or wounds everything that Steve loves. A cold wind hits him, and he shivers. He wonders if the cold is death itself, rising up out of Clark’s grave to capture him in its grasp. He bites back the pain, the loss, the guilt.

He wasn’t even there when it happened.

He was half a world away, in Siberia. Everything happened too fast, so fast even for a super soldier like himself. He should have been able to catch up. He should have stopped everything. He should have been able to tell Stark to stop. He should have been able to change things. He looks down at his hands, remembering a time, an age ago, when he’d only just seen himself as this hulking man instead of a thin rail of a man. His hands shake, his heart skips in his chest as if he’s run a thousand miles and still has a thousand more to go. 

He feels a gentle hand on his shoulder and he’s ashamed to say how much he needs it. It feels so much like he’s own mother that the tears fall down his cheeks, bitter and sharp against the wind. He looks up and there’s Martha Kent. Her world has been stolen from her and Steve helped.

“Come, have some tea,” she says and he doesn’t want to move. But his legs force him to move. It’s like trudging through thigh deep snow. He lets her be his anchor, and he follows her. It’s the least he can do, considering it’s his fault her son is dead.

They go to her house, the house Clark grew up in. There’s a new porch and there’s remodeling in the house. He knows part of this is due to the ravages that came of her house, visited upon her because of her son. But another part of him aches that Clark didn’t live in these parts – that these are new and that he wasn’t physically living here when they were rebuilt. 

She leads him to the kitchen and tells him to sit. He does, because she feels familiar. Not only as Clark’s mother but as if she is Steve’s mother. The thought brings him back to Siberia and he sees the awful footage of the Winter Soldier (he will not say Bucky because it was not Bucky) killing Stark’s parents. The strangled scream of Stark’s mother as she was killed echoes in his brain. It shatters him into pieces, parts and categories that he cannot put back together. 

The water boils and the kettle whistles. She places a plate of sandwiches, a pickle, cookies, and a cup of tea in front of him. “Eat.”

He picks up the half of sandwich and his hand shakes. He puts it back down. “I should have been there. It’s my fault.”

She doesn’t say anything. Somehow older women know things. He doesn’t understand how. But there’s a wisdom in their eyes and an ageless knowledge that life imparts to them and only them. She lets him talk. She doesn’t interrupt him.

“I went on some mission. I had to help Bucky.” He explains it all wrong. All out of order. “He – they were coming.” He takes a deep breath and says, “If I hadn’t helped him, they would have put him away in a prison at the bottom of the ocean.”

She waits again. She stands by a stove that looks like it might have been older than Clark – but not older than Steve. Never older than Steve. He’s too old now, too old for this world. He should have stayed in the ice. He should have laid down with Peggy and faded away. 

“I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t.”

“And what about your other friends?” 

It’s so similar to what Bucky asked him as they flew to Siberia; it stabs into his chest. “I got them out. Before I came here.”

“And you shouldn’t be here, should you?” She knows. She knows he’s a fugitive. It isn’t the first time, but it is probably the last time. If they find him, if they realize he’s on American soil they will come for him and put him in the deepest ocean prison yet. Stark will have changed the locks, the system. There will be no escape. He welcomes it.

“No, I shouldn’t. But I had to come. I had to pay my resp-.” And he can’t hold it back. The love for Clark, the hatred of himself, the guilt flood into a ground swell that is too much for him to hold back. He collapses under its weight and it destroys him. He sobs openly, like he hasn’t since his youngest days in the 1920s. She’s there, standing next to him. She holds him to her chest and embraces him. 

She goes to her knees onto the linoleum floor and grasps his shoulders. Through tears he sees her face. It’s worn and old and kind and reminds him so much of his mother. He holds onto her because he doesn’t want to lose her too. He’s lost so much, too much.

“He wouldn’t want you to be here if it was dangerous,” Martha says. Her voice rasps at the air. She’s holding it together for him. 

“I couldn’t stay away.” Is it a confession or a plea? He’s not sure. What is he supposed to do next? They were figuring things out. But then the Accords happened and Clark was called away. And Steve ended up in Siberia fighting the demons of the past. 

She wipes away his tears and then climbs to her feet. Leaning down, she kisses his forehead and says, “Eat and have your tea.” 

He eats. It’s mechanical. It’s something his body needs, but he doesn’t want it. His stomach churns but he swallows down the food. He doesn’t eat enough, and he knows it. She does too. She leads him upstairs and tells him to sleep. She offers him sleeping pants that he knows are Clark’s, and he declines. 

Once he closes the door and she leaves, he turns and stares at the bed. He was last in this room with Clark, in love and recovering. They made love in this bed. He sits on the floor near the foot of the bed. The night settles around him and the day light drifts away in patches. He slides away from the bed and lies down on the floor. It’s drafty and the wind whistles in strange echoes of a past life. He thinks he can hear Clark’s laughter as a child or his fears as his powers grew. The ghosts of lives past float by him during the night. It intermingles with his own life. 

As a skinny sickly boy, Steve would spend hours indoors too sick to leave their flat. But then Bucky would come over and talk with him or play cars with him or read comic books. And in his dreams another little boy would come over with dark waves for hair and crystalline blue eyes with dimples in his cheeks. He would sit quietly as they read comic books and talk about his home world. Sometimes he would come when Bucky wasn’t there and they would talk about how he could fly and how he loved the stars.

When Steve awakes he’s cramped and on the floor. It’s not even light out yet but dawn inches across the horizon like a knife with its reds and purples bleeding over the landscape. He rubs the dreamscape from his eyes and gets to his feet. He stares out at the open fields. They have winter wheat planted. He wonders who does the planting for Martha – does she run the entire farm on her own now? That thought spikes pain in his chest and he splays a hand against his sternum. The dawn spreads and he watches it set the waves of wheat on fire. The wheat sways in the winds and gives the false impression of heat and warmth when he knows it’s cold outside. 

Without a jacket, Steve goes downstairs and slips outside. He’s not sure how long it will be until Martha is awake and the day starts on the farm. The only other farm he’s ever been on for any length of time was Clint’s and he really didn’t bother to think about the schedules. But for now the world sleeps still. He walks along the back of the house. The cold whips at him and he doesn’t shiver. Instead he baths in it. Part of him welcomes it. He wants it to encompass him, take him back, allow his heat to feed it as he’s consumed. Fatalism isn’t Steve’s normal mindset, but somedays, somedays he can’t find that optimism. He can’t dig it up and out of the ground. 

He finds himself at Clark’s grave again. The grass that grew over it during the summer months has faded from the green to less than green. To the remembrance of green. It looked vibrant yesterday. But it was never vibrant. It was this washed out, brown green of winter. He glances up at the sky and the sun leaks its weakest light. The clouds move in and the smell of snow lingers. He places his hand on the grave again and weeps. How can a god die? 

“He was never a god,” Steve murmurs. “Just an extraordinary man.” He tries to find his way back to his feet. He has to move on, leave, forget this part of his life. Like all the other parts. 

Small frail Steve

Rebirthed to Captain America in World War II

Frozen

Awoken to a new day, to a new home, to the Avengers

Outcast, renamed a War Criminal

He’s nothing more than a title that’s tainted and ugly. He’s lost everything now. His family, his friends, his love, his time. He places his hand, palm down, onto the ground. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” How can he say he placed saving the world from a threat that didn’t materialize, Winter Soldiers that were already dead by the time he arrived? How can he possibly apologize for that? “I’m sorry. I’ll always love you.”

He sits there in the early morning as the dawn brightens and the wind quiets. And he listens to his own heart, a pace in his chest. A throb and a beat. It doesn’t hurt but it does. He listens and it grows even quieter, but his heart skips and shudders. He stops.

His heart doesn’t miss a beat. He listens, reaches forward. And listens. It is faint and hollow and so far distant. He hears it – a single note.

Beat.

Imagination and wishful thinking will get you nowhere, that’s what Bucky used to say. But he waits anyhow. Listening again, trying to quell the sound of his own heart. It takes more than five minutes before he hears it again. But it is resounding.

**Beat**

It isn’t his heart, it isn’t his life. He puts both hands on the ground. The dewy frost ices his fingers but he ignores it. “Clark?”

Nothing.

“Clark, can you hear me?” 

Wouldn’t they have checked for a heartbeat? But what if that heartbeat was so slow they couldn’t detect it? What if Steve can hear it because of the serum? “Clark?”

He waits for an eternity and then…

**Beat**

Swearing, he claws at the ground. It’s wet and moist from the early morning frost and dew. It’s not frozen, not yet. He pulls at the mud, ripping at the grass. On his knees, the cold earth slops against the ground as he throws it to the side. He breathes in heavy pants and he tastes the earth as if fills the air. Even as he scrambles to get to that **beat** Martha interrupts him.

“Steve, Steve, stop. What are you doing?” Her voice pitches and there’s a cry in it. He should stop, but the sound pervades his rational thought. He glances over his shoulder and Martha looks small and distant against the fields of wheat and the clouds mixed with morning blue sky. 

“I can’t, I can’t.” Tears stream down his face and his nose runs. He’s scraping at the ground. His body is covered in the mud. “I got to get to him.”

“No, please, no!” Martha yanks at him, tugging on his shirt as he digs. “You need to stop. Please!”

Steve scoops up large handfuls of the mud and pushes it away. The mud splatters on the headstone as a light, passing flurry starts to flicker about them. “No, I can’t stop. I can’t.”

Martha lets go of his shirt and walks around the grave to try and get in his face. “Steve, this isn’t helping anyone or anything. Please. Who should I call? Should I call the Avengers? Should I call Tony Stark?”

Steve barks out a laugh. “Tony hates me. Hates me because I made a mistake. I tried to shield him from the truth, I tried to shield Bucky from the consequences, but the one person I should have shielded, the one person I could have saved I didn’t.”

Martha crawls into the mud over her son’s grave. She places her hands on Steve’s and says, “He’s dead. Let him rest.”

Steve wipes at the tears on his face, smearing mud across his cheeks. He sees she’s worn and tired from the grief. “No, he’s not dead. I can hear it.”

“Steve-.”

“I can hear his heart beat.”

She startles, snaps her hands away from him. Her eyes go wide with disbelief and she looks like she might run, like she’s afraid of him Is she the prey and he the predator? Has it gotten so bad that he’s that removed from the world, from others around him, from realizing what a threat he poses. 

“No,” she says and falls back to sit in the mud. “No, we buried him, He’s dead.”

“I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but I can hear his heartbeat. I know it’s his. I know it. It’s different from all the other human heartbeats. It has a deeper pitch. I know it, please help me.” He doesn’t mind lowering himself to beg, not for this, never for this.

She eyes him, studying his intent as if she can see through to his heart like her son could. As if with her vision she can tell the truth of his actions and his words. She nods, gets to her feet and races back to the house. 

**Beat**

It takes forever for her to return, but she does with two shovels. They both begin digging in earnest. Silent tears glide down her face. She doesn’t speak as she digs. She’s focused on her work. 

He turns his attention back to the ground and zeroes in on it like he’s fighting a battle with the Earth itself. He pierces the mucky ground and lifts out huge piles of dirt and rocks. Worms squirm against the cold but he throws them to the side. Martha tires fast, but it doesn’t matter because she continues with a single mindedness. He wants to tell her to stop, but he knows now that she’s committed, she won’t. He understands the need, the insanity of it. What if he’s wrong? What if he imagined it?

**Beat**

No, he didn’t. He knows he didn’t. The rightness about it shocks him like electricity flowing through the air around him, spiking through his nerves, setting his brain afire with hope and with terror. The air around them chills him. His clothes are soaking wet. For a second he looks up at Martha and sees reflected in her the same determination and fear. They work in a kind of strange fugue, shoveling rhythmically, stabbing the sodden ground and then sloshing into the earth. Each plop of wet mud to the side means they are that much closer. The soil gets drier the deeper they go and Steve’s grateful for that – because it’s lighter, easier to move and he can go faster still. 

Martha lags behind and eventually he tells her to move to the side as he drills down. He climbs into the pit they made and throws the dirt over his shoulder. She’s visibly shaking with exhaustion, with the cold, with fear. While the snow has let up, the sun isn’t exactly warming the farm. She doesn’t leave. She stays like a sentinel as Steve plods downward. What he might find sends a terrible churning fear through him. What happens to a man buried for months? Alive. 

**Beat**

Steve doubles his efforts. He can’t stop himself from calling out, “I hear you, Clark. I’m coming.”

Martha gasps and puts a dirtied hand to her mouth. She drops it and then says, “Do you hear him? Is he answering?”

Steve doesn’t bother to respond. He keeps his pace and finally after silence that’s only broken by his labored breathing his shovel tip hits the top of the coffin. “Found it.”

Martha nods but says nothing. She’s weeping in a quiet way that both robs him of words and chips away at his heart, planting a deep ache within him. He shoves the rest of the dirt off of the lid and then digs down along the edge of the coffin. It means he has to stand on top of the coffin and he hates that and hopes that Martha doesn’t see it as too disrespectful. Eventually he’s able to clear a space large enough for him to stand in.

He jumps down after throwing the shovel up top. He squats and pushes his hands under the coffin. It takes some doing and his arms get scrapped and bloody. He doesn’t care. With a heave he lifts the coffin, it teeters for a second before he’s able to balance it again and then he hoist it up and thrusts it above him. Martha helps to guide it onto the ground. 

Clambering up, he gets out of the hole and then fingers the edge of the coffin lid. Before he flings it off, he checks with Martha to see if she’s ready. She’s filthy and her eyes are ringed by dark circles. The cloudy day ages her. She nods to him and he grips the lip of the lid and jerks it. It gives easily and he tosses the lid aside. 

Clark lies in the coffin as if in slumber. There’s no decay of his body but he looks sunken, desiccated, dry as if all of these months buried has stolen every bit of moisture from him. Steve reaches in as Martha bends over her son.

“Clark?”

Martha only weeps. “He’s dead. He’s dead.” She glances up at Steve. “What did you do? Why did you do this? You made me believe.” Her whole body quakes as she kneels in the mud and dirt. “My son, my poor son.” She rocks slowly to and fro and the horror of the moment jolts through Steve. 

“What have I done?” All he hears is a mother’s distraught cries. There’s nothing but silence other than her crying. The rigidity and tension drains out of him and he collapses toward Clark. He reaches up and touches his face. It’s no colder than the day. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He doesn’t know if he’s apologizing about disturbing his rest or if he’s apologizing to Martha. He places his hand on Clark’s chest. It will be the last time he sees Clark. It will be the last time for everything.

**Beat**

He stops. Staring at Clark, he says, “Clark?”

Martha grabs his shoulder, clutching at him. “No, don’t. Don’t you dare.”

“I can feel it. He’s alive. He’s alive.” She trembles and rocks and Steve knows he’s not getting through to her. For a second – just a few seconds – he leaves Clark and places his hands on her shoulders. “Go get the car. We need to bring him inside.”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t connect with what Steve’s saying. Just as Steve is about to try again, the clouds part and a ray of sun hits Clark’s face. The ashen turns a blush and for only a shuddering second his eyes flicker and then go still again. She gasps and clings to Steve. 

“He’s alive,” Steve says again. “Go get the car! We need to get him in the house.” 

It takes her a few moments before she’s mobile. Steve understands because the shock vibrates through him, too. She struggles to her feet, stumbles, and then races away. He turns back to Clark – still silent like the grave and Steve smothers a laugh that feels more like hysteria. Slipping his arms under Clark he lifts, and then finds his footing to stand. By the time he gets to his feet Martha has returned with the car. They lay him on the back seat – he’s too long for it so Steve tucks his legs under him. 

Martha drives back to the house. Her eyes glimmer in the morning light. She only glances at Steve before saying, “What do we do?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. He’s not coming out of it.”

“He did. He did when -.” She stops and then realization hits her. She pulls the car up to the house and shifts it into park. Grabbing Steve’s hand she says, “When the sun hit him – it’s that. When Clark was young and still figuring things out with his powers, sometimes he said the sun made him feel better.”

“The sun,” Steve says. He remembers Clark telling him that the sun was the source of his power. Could it revive him? Could the sun bring him back from the dead or whatever strange purgatory he now inhabits? Steve studies the sky. The clouds are gathering and a storm brews. “We need to get him out of the area then.”

Martha nods. “The storm is supposed to hang over Kansas for the next few days.”

“Can we get him out? How are we going to get him out?” They could drive. That would be easiest. “Maybe I could drive to Arizona or Florida?”

“With an unconscious man and you’re a wanted man,” Martha says. “No, I have someone we can call, if you don’t.”

He doesn’t. “Not close.”

“Okay, let me try this number,” Martha says. Before she leaves the car, she reaches out to her son, touching him for the first time. “I’m so sorry.”

Steve lays his hand on top of hers. “You couldn’t have known.” Martha only bites back her words. “Death for him is something different.”

“I know. I raised him and that’s why I should have known.”

She leaves the car, her head down. As she does, Steve wipes away his own tears and heaves in a breath before getting out of the car. He goes to the backseat and angles Clark so he can maneuver him out of the car. It’s a tight fit and they are two large men. It’s a little like having a Volkswagon Beetle as a getaway car. He’s getting out of control, a little too anxious and hopeful. He needs to calm it down, control that’s what he needs. He brings Clark out of the car and up the stairs to the house. When he enters the kitchen, Martha’s on the phone – a landline and there’s a special feeling of home about that – and she points to the living room. He heads there with his precious bundle. 

Laying Clark on the couch, Steve brushes away the dirt and dust. While Clark is a little dirty, Steve is filthy. He doesn’t want to sit down in the pristine living room. But he bends over Clark to check him. His pulse is not detectable, but Steve can hear the putter of his heart every now and again. By the time Martha comes into the living room, Steve counts the beats of Clark’s heart. It’s about one beat per every seven minutes. If that.

“Lois Lane is helping. She’s using her contacts to help us.” Martha joins him at Clark’s side. 

“She’s a reporter, right? Can we trust her?” Steve asks.

“She’s kept Clark’s secret this long,” Martha replies with a shrug. “I expect that she can keep it a little longer.” Tentatively, she peels back Clark’s shirt – there Steve sees the wound, the spear through his chest. Under her breath, Martha moans a little at how fresh the wound still looks.

“I thought nothing could pierce his skin?” Steve says as he further opens Clark’s shirt.

“Apparently, they figured out something with Kryptonite. It makes him vulnerable, weak-.” She starts to cry again. Steve covers her hands with his own and gently pulls her aside.

“Why don’t you go get cleaned up? I’ll make us some coffee and we can wait for Lois?” Steve says and squeezes her shoulders.

She agrees and with a final touch to her son’s dark curls, goes upstairs to shower. Steve doesn’t leave to go and make the coffee right away. Instead he hovers close to Clark. Falling in love with Clark was easy, but being together proved to be nearly impossible. By his nature, Clark needed to keep his identity secret and safe. With the anger over super human individuals and the paranoia running through the nation and the world due to Ross’ campaign, their relationship suffered. Steve never stopped loving Clark and he knew the same was true for Clark. But the fact remained that Steve decided to leave instead of stay. He didn’t leave Clark, never, but he left their relationship behind to chase after the past.

He wasn’t there when Clark needed him the most. He waits a moment longer before going to the kitchen. He cleans up as much as he can at the kitchen sink and then starts the coffee. Martha makes coffee on the stove with a percolator and Steve sinks further into the idea of home. This might be more than just Clark’s home. It might be more. By the time Martha finishes and checks on Clark, Steve has the coffee made, some toast and eggs. He places the plate on the table with the coffee.

“Go, get cleaned up. I’ll keep things warm,” Martha says and Steve follows her direction. 

He recalls just last night climbing the stairs in a kind of daze. Now that daze melts away and everything vibrates with a renewed energy. He quickly strips and showers. He doesn’t have any other clothes but when he returns to Clark’s bedroom he spots a simple shirt and jeans on the bed. He digs out some of Clark’s boxers and dresses. He also fishes out some socks and then rejoins Martha downstairs. She waited for him and they eat in silence, both of them anxious to get back to Clark’s side. 

After they clean up the breakfast dishes they sit by Clark in the living room. Martha brings a homemade quilt and covers her son. “Can you, can you still hear his heart?”

Steve nods. “Yes. Once, every seven minutes or so. It seems to be getting stronger.”

Glancing out the window, Martha says, “If it wasn’t storming, we could bring him outside. The sun will help him. I know it will.”

“We will,” Steve says. He has his doubts about Martha’s theory, but then again, she raised him she would know. He shouldn’t doubt, but how can the sun bring the dead back to life. Clark isn’t dead – Steve knows that, but the fear keeps pushing Steve back, forcing him back to the dreadful reality that Clark hasn’t moved or given any outward sign of life. The sun heals – that’s all Steve has to accept.

It’s mid-afternoon and they’ve had lunch by the time they hear a car crunch the gravel drive way and park in front of the house. Martha jumps up and Steve lingers over Clark, ready to bolt with him if he has to. Martha answers the door and Lois Lane followed by a man Steve never thought he would meet enters the Kent household. 

Martha and Lois embrace as Bruce Wayne stands to the side. He notices Steve but doesn’t remark on the fact that a criminal is standing in the middle of the Kent’s living room. Lois turns to Bruce and says, “I thought we needed some extra help and Bruce has the means.”

Bruce offers his hand to Martha and she accepts it. He leans in and whispers to her, “There’s nothing to worry about. I promise.”

She doesn’t appear shaken, and Steve thinks that he’s seen her at her worse today. When Lois and Bruce enter the living room, an unsettled feeling permeates the room. Lois half smiles at Steve. “Captain.”

“I’m not a Captain anymore,” he announces. It doesn’t hurt. It hasn’t in a while. “Just Steve.” He offers his hand.

She takes it and says, “Almost didn’t recognize you with the dark hair and beard.” 

“Well, it’s better than baseball cap and hoodie,” Steve replies.

“Or a pair of glasses,” Bruce adds. They all smile at that and then their gazes drop to Clark – silent on the couch. Bruce studies him and then says, “Months in the ground and he looks like he’s sleeping.” Meeting Martha’s gaze, he asks, “What can I do to help?”

“Sun. We need the sun.”

Her words are simple, a plea for help. Steve steps in. “Martha noticed that as a boy Clark – when the input from around him was too much, he often sat in the sun. It helped. Clark even told me that the sun helped him, was the source of his powers. We don’t know if it will help him or not now.” Martha frowns at him when he states that, but he continues. “It’s possible. When the sun came out briefly before the snow, his eyes flickered.”

“Well, the sun is simple enough. We could just bring him away from the storm,” Lois says but then she eyes Steve. “You can’t come. You need to get out of the country.”

Steve hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “I would rather not leave his side. If that’s okay with both of you. We’re- we’re-.” They’ve been fairly secret about their relationship. His team mates knew – both Clark and Steve told them. But Clark had to keep a lid on his identity and his relationship with Steve. If anyone knew that Captain America was dating Clark Kent, the coverage would have been relentless and Clark’s secret would have been discovered.

“I’m sorry, if you both don’t know, but -.” She stops and looks at Steve. He only nods. They have to confess this information. With his silent permission, Martha continues, “Steve is more than a friend to him.” Martha waits for it to sink in. Steve knows that Clark had a fling with Lois at one time, but putting her in constant danger stopped him from pursuing it. 

It dawns on them, and Steve watches Lois especially. She smiles and then purses her lips. “Well, if I were you I wouldn’t want to leave his side either. That makes it doubly hard. You’re a wanted man. The Government is still actively searching for you. There were reports on the news last night about someone spotting you near the Canadian border. The Government is really pushing the Accords.”

He doesn’t comment. The less they know about his movements, the better. Plausible deniability is getting more and more difficult with this situation.

“Something I don’t agree with, by the way,” Bruce says. “I’ve been talking with Stark Industries, talking to Stark himself trying to get him to change his mind about these Accords.”

“I’m sorry, but right now, can we focus on my son?” Martha snaps. And then the world becomes centered again on what really matters, and Steve is immediately grateful to her. 

“Well, if you want to stay with Clark, then we need to get you both to somewhere safe and somewhere close to the sun. Short of sending you to the Wayne Systems Space Station orbiting the Moon, I think I have a more private, better facility. I’m calling my helicopter.” He dips his head to look out the window. “Storms not bad. It can get in.”

The rush over the next few hours trudges through molasses. Getting ready to go, checking on Clark, watching the snow storm grow worse, and then finally sitting and waiting. It’s too much and too little to do at the same time. Finally the whirl of helicopter blades cut the air and Steve wonders at the pilot in the storm. But the copter settles in the front yard. Lois says her goodbyes. She hugs Martha and they hold on, clinging to one another, before she turns to Steve.

“Take good care of him.” She extends her hand and he accepts it. 

“I will,” Steve promises. “Thank you for the help.”

“When the time is right, I expect an exclusive,” Lois says with a wink. 

Smiling, Steve replies, “Well, if Clark doesn’t get it first.” She laughs and then walks to her car. She drives away. The snow is falling at a steady rate and he worries about her safety. Bruce leans over him.

“Don’t worry. I’ll have an eye on her.” 

Steve has no idea what that means since they all pack into the helicopter. Clark’s laid out in the back, strapped in. Martha bundles blankets over him. Bruce sits up in the pilot’s seat. Apparently there was no pilot for the helicopter. Steve’s seen these types before – Stark had them. Martha and Steve sit close together. Luggage is stowed under the cabin. He doesn’t have any other clothes but the ones on his back, but he’s certain that Martha made sure he’ll have something.

The journey takes hours. They transfer at a private airport to a private jet. Bruce files the passenger list and the flight plan. It’s bogus. Steve doesn’t ask. When the flight finally lands, the whole day has been eaten away and they have to wait until the next day to see if their theory will actually help. 

Steve doesn’t leave Clark’s side. He listens for the heartbeat. It’s there and stronger still, but slow and distant at the same time. They arrive on a private island in the Caribbean. Bruce alerted his staff and the mansion is alive with activity when they finally get there. As dawn comes, Steve already has Clark outside on the veranda overlooking the infinity pool and the beach beyond it. The waves of the ocean crash and sing and lull. But Steve attends to Clark. He methodically undresses Clark, leaving him only in his boxers. Martha helps and trashes all of the clothes.

“I won’t have my son in his death clothes.”

He understands. Together they wait. The sun is beautiful and warming. Nothing happens. Clark doesn’t move, doesn’t twitch. The ugly wound on his chest doesn’t mend. After a day, Martha starts to quietly doubt.

“Maybe he’s in a coma and none of our medicine will help him?” Martha whispers and Steve lifts him to bring him inside to the bed. “Maybe this is all there is.”

“I won’t give up. We’ll talk to Bruce. He might have someone who could help us out,” Steve says and lays Clark on the bed. He brushes away the hair from Clark’s face. It’s warmer, flush with life. Yet Clark’s heart isn’t the strong beat that Steve remembered. 

Martha only agrees and then slips out of the room as night descends. Steve goes to the bath, showers, and dresses in boxers only. Bringing a wet cloth, he crawls onto the bed with Clark and wipes down his face and chest. Steve swears he can still smell the stink of the grave on him. Steve lies close to Clark as the night wears on. When Martha comes to call him for dinner, he politely refuses. She only looks at him with a mourning in her eyes. She leaves him to his peace. His doubt and guilt bubble up then as they are apt to do during the waning hours. He listens for a breath, but Clark isn’t breathing – not discernibly anyhow. 

He sleeps but the dreams forebode of the future and he wakes startled and sweating. When he turns to look at Clark, his repose hasn’t changed. Steve groans and his stomach growls. He’s skipped too many meals in the last day. He’ll worry about it later. The smell of death hangs heavily in the air and Steve shivers. Maybe he’s imagining things. Maybe he should ask Bruce to confirm it; Steve’s sure that Bruce would have the instruments, ways to figure out if Steve is truly hearing…

**Beat.**

Steve touches Clark’s face. “Clark?” There’s no motion. The night has deepened but outside the sliding glass doors beyond the pool along the crest of the ocean Steve sees the promise of dawn.

“I’m going to get you cleaned up.” Steve labors to pick up Clark, and then brings him to the veranda again. Resting Clark on the lounge, Steve tests the waters of the infinity pool. It’s warm and inviting. He embraces Clark and then slips into the pool. He helps Clark to float. The lights recessed in the sides of the pool illuminate them against the stars in the night. Steve walks around the pool, gently leading Clark. Through the darkness, Steve watches Clark’s eyes. There’s no movement, no indication he lives. Brushing a hand down his chest, Steve whispers, “Clark, come back to me.”

It sounds more like a plea, a broken, hopeless beckoning more than anything else. He continues to lead Clark around the pool until a glimmer of light catches his eye. It isn’t coming from the heavens as the dawn breaks over the horizon. It isn’t coming from the pool as they swim through the quiet surface. It’s coming from Clark.

A light.

From his chest.

In some ways it reminds Steve of Stark’s arc reactor. Steve stops and brings Clark over to the side of the pool. It isn’t an arc reactor. It isn’t blue like an arc reactor.

It’s green.

Steve lifts Clark out of the pool and lays him on the deck, and then lightly rubs his hand down the wound. His finger catch. It’s hard to make out. A sliver. Just a pinpoint. Someone else might not be able to actually see it, but Steve does. The serum grants him that. He touches the embedded splinter and then tugs. It holds on. Steve grimaces, and then with his fingertips holds it and pulls. It’s larger, much larger than he thought. He’s able to get about a finger’s length out of Clark’s chest. It glints green. It’s thicker now, about as thick as Steve’s own index finger. Gripping it, Steve yanks. It slides out, like an arrow pierced Clark through. It’s bloody and long and shining with an inward green glow. 

He puts it to the side and presses a hand to Clark’s chest. A small bit of blood leaks out. 

“Here.” 

Steve looks up and Bruce hands him a towel. Taking the towel, he thanks Bruce and then cleans up the wound. Bruce bends down and scoops up the green blade.

“This – this has to get away from him,” Bruce says. “It’s what’s been keeping him under.”

“What is it?” Steve asks.

“Kryptonite. The last vestiges of his home world. I have to get it far away from him if we want him to heal,” Bruce explains. “I’m heading out anyhow. You and Mrs. Kent can stay as long as it takes for him to heal.”

“Thank you,” Steve says. 

“My people are loyal to me. If you need anything just ask. Don’t worry, your secret is safe. And so is his.” Bruce leaves without explaining how he knows about Clark’s weakness, why he’s protecting Clark, or even why he’s hiding Steve. Steve watches the man fade into the shadows of the mansion by the sea.

The sun glistens on the waters as Steve turns back to Clark. The dawn’s promise hits Clark’s face and a blush of life spreads over him and the beat grows louder and more persistent still.

**Beat…beat…beat…**

A flicker and a blink as the sun grows stronger and Steve lays Clark’s head on his lap. Slowly, Clark opens his eyes. Steve cups his cheek and whispers his name. Clark reaches up, touches Steve’s face as if in wonder or bemusement. A wash of joy floods over Steve, he never hoped to hold Clark again, never hoped to touch him again, never hoped to find this moment.

“I’m here, I’m here.” Steve’s voice cracks. “I missed you so damned much.” He leans down and kisses Clark. Their lips touch and it’s like they never left one another – that the world outside is a fantasy and their lives together are all that counts. The kiss grows in strength and hope and Steve shudders against Clark, relief and anxiety breaking through him. Clark holds onto him as if fear of what happened, as if fear of what he’s been through greets Clark like nightmare. Whatever fears they have, whatever torments and tests are to come, they will have each other. Steve cradles Clark in his arms for the rest of the morning as Clark strengthens and the sun promises renewed life. From now on, they will face their fate together.

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> yay! Another of our rare pairing!! I love this pairing so much. Do you? I hope you do!!


End file.
